Does Konami have high hopes for PES 2010 or what?

Konami's latest challenger for the FIFA throne launches today, and highly decent it is too, scoring a very respectable 4/5 in our recent review. Alas that’s not quite the perfection attained by FIFA 10, but PES still has untold hordes of fans and Konami is plainly confident that they’ll be queuing up to buy the new iteration. How confident? Er, about three million.

That’s how many Konami has hoofed into retail for the game’s kick-off. In other words, loads, and Konami bods are already reckoning they’ll shift a million at launch. Past performance and the new game’s excellence gives them this confidence, as Konami Europe’s marketing and PR director, Martin Schneider, explains:

“Global sales for the PES series to date are over 55.5m, and we expect a very strong performance from what is easily the best PES in a long, long time. We have worked closely with PES fans and football fans in general to create a game that ticks every box. We will be continuing this two-way conversation as we look to DLC for PES 2010, and further beyond.”

Of course, such talk is cheap, and the proof of the pudding will be in the purchasing. FIFA 10 has already sold a million, however, which makes us question how much capacity there is for another footy game to do the same. Either way both games are out now and their can only be one winner. If you have a strong opinion about either's prospects why not express it in the PES vs FIFA blog we’ve just posted. Chop chop…